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The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century |  | Authors: George Friedman, Meredith Friedman
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
List Price: $18.99
Buy New: $4.73
as of 11/22/2009 17:45 CST details
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Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 55579
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0312181000
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.033073
EAN: 9780312181000
ASIN: 0312181000
Publication Date: February 15, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Future of War makes a brilliant case that the twenty-first century, even more than the twentieth, will be the American century, and that America's global dominance will be associated with a revolution in weaponry and warfare as basic as the one that arose with the development of gunpowder five hundred years ago. From the era of flintlocks and cannons to the day of automatic weapons and heavy artillery, the waging of war-while undeniably changing in many aspects-has continued to rely on the technology that began with the use of black powder to expel a projectile through a tube.
In The Future of War, the authors argue that this Age of Ballistics is ending and we are entering a fundamentally new period, the Age of Precision-Guided Munitions (PGMs), the so-called smart weapons that will antiquate the traditional way of making war. Where guns and artillery are inherently inaccurate and need to be fired thousands of times to hit one target, these new projectiles are precise and lethally efficient; while ballistic weapons platforms must be brought within range of the battlefield, PGMs can devastate from any distance.
The authors show how the innovations in weapons technology will affect America's defense strategies on land and sea, in air and in space, reshaping our military forces, while confronting us with new strategic challenges as America enters the twenty-first century as the dominant power on the globe.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
Worthy of space on the bookshelf of any military science enthusist November 12, 2009
Francis Z. Zhou
Author George Friedman is an insightful scholar who took the time to conduct research and analysis to produce this body of work. I won't go into the details of what the book is about, since that's best left to the readers to discover (not to mention other reviewers already said plenty). The book is full of historical and statistical data that backs up the thesis, which makes the argument convincing.
I have two issues with this book, you could say they are differences of opinion, which lead me to gave it only 4 out of 5 stars instead of the full 5 stars:
1) It's more of a technical analysis on the weapons (means) to make war, and therefore one of the book's conclusion is that due to the birth and proliferation of Precision Guided Munitions, human, especially civilian casualties will decrease in future wars. It didn't take into account human emotions involved in destructive activities such as war, and the human propensity for destruction and inflicting pain and suffering on others. Human beings may have the means to avoid extra bloodshed in war, but in times of stress, human beings are known to make illogical decisions based on primal instincts that, for lack of better words, creates un-due amount of destruction and suffering.
2) The book restricted the definition of war to a conventional one, and only analyzed its means and future within this framework. In this day and age of globalization, multi-lateral interests, and dependency on information and technology, convensional warfare is only one way of waging war, and certainly not all encompassing. One can view the recent proliferation of terrorism and terrorism attacks as another way of waging war, one that transcends national boundaries and convensional means. So a more befitting title to the book should be "The Future of Convensional War". Overlooking other non-convensional means to wage war can cost the US dearly in terms of national interest. For an insight on non-convensional warfare, I recommend the book (more of an long essay) "Unrestricted Warfare" written by two PLA colonels. The translated version can be readily found on the internet.
 Loved it. June 28, 2009
T. Ervin (tucson az usa)
Note the book is 1998, and a lot has happened since. But it's a very good piece of writing on the history of weaponry, senility, obsolescence, developments, inventions, command, etc. Covers land-sea-air all very well, and space also. For the avid follower of defense, this is old news. But it was a great overview for me.
A graduate course in thinking June 27, 2009
Harvey Slentz (Amelia Island FL USA)
"The Future of War" is for anyone interested in military matters, or anyone interested in thinking. It's a great book about warfare, but even if you don't have much interest in war, you'll find a treasure-trove of that oft-cited skill, 'critical thinking'.
The book begins with the long history of war, providing insight into things I never considered. For example, the author explains how David was able to kill Goliath, who was burdened with very heavy defensive armor at the expense of mobility.
The book draws a comparison to present day Goliaths - the huge armored tanks and the aircraft carrier battle groups - and how both strategy and technology is changing the usefulness of those weapons systems. I was surprised when I realized that the immense power of a carrier battle group is primarily focused on protecting the carrier, which in turn only has a few dozen attack aircraft from which it launches offensive weapons. I knew some of the data previously, but the book assembled that data in a way I hadn't considered.
The importance of sea lane control, and the analogy to control of certain orbits in space, was fascinating. There's so much more, but you'll have to read the book. It's a keeper, even though it was written several years ago.
 The Future is Now? June 2, 2008
Terry Tucker (Richland, TX)
This book is about the coming American epoch. This author predicts that the face of war in the 21st Century will be dominated by the United States. His Prediction? The 21st Century is the American Century.
The author presents a very complelling and optimistic survey. In one sense it is a traditional approach. Warfare will still be waged in accordance with rules and principles, but, the focus of this book is on technology and how that technology will shape the future of warfare.
Worth the Read July 24, 2005
Life for an Eye
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Friedman has done a wonderful job of laying a broad overview of US techno-politico power and policy plans for the new millenium. He has not however fully discussed the appalling breach of security that our own US based companies are guilty of committing. China has now armed themselves with advanced missile technologies that representatives and technicians of many US firms have given away. This is not only an insane and profoundly stupid act of retardation but an act of treason. Every one of these people that devulged these secrets, however casually, should be publically executed as an example.
Because of these breaches, the US is now in the midst of radically and most wisely changing its war policies. What we read about is of course the things that are known and what the government wants us to either know or feels is not a threat in having it known. My only hope in the development of conventional weaponry, we are not merely drawing plans but have the capacity to make a new George Lucas film look like a cheap gimic trick and can take out our enemeies whole sale if need be.
Kruschev and Mao Tse-Tung reportedly boasted that the West would sell them the rope that they would then use to hang the West. Like fools, we've sold them yards of rope. Hopefully we've invented something quite clever to make this proverbial rope obsolete and useless.
The current poltiically correct culture would have us idiotically believe the vacuous notion that our enemies share our same value system and that there is no need to prepare for war and so doing is provocative. But freedom has never been free--ever. Our enemeies spit on our values and would indeed hang us with the rope we've provided because of that foolish liberal sentiment that everyone is fundamentally good with that world-can-be-as-one Coca-Cola-motto philosophy.
These are most dangerous times indeed and our enemies still see power coming from the capacity to do violence.
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
-Mao Tse-Tung
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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